4 ms·

I don't find it so bizarre. The emergence of women to major political roles is a thing of the past 1-2 generations in almost all of the world (with the exceptio

I don't find it so bizarre. The emergence of women to major political roles is a thing of the past 1-2 generations in almost all of the world (with the exception of some monarchs). (I guess it would be almost safe to count Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 93-96, as a monarch...)

aaronbrethorst 10y ago
> I don't find it so bizarre Women have made up 50% of the population of Homo Sapiens for the entire age of our species. Literally for hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And it is literally in our lifetimes (give or take maybe 30 years) that the first woman is made the elected leader of a country? I wrote my reply with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, but when you get right down to it, it is phenomenally unlikely that we live at such a moment of change.
- philovivero 10y ago
  Le sigh. Here comes some greytext. Is it so insanely improbable that, on the whole, men strive toward power and women don't? That there is some slim evidence that there is a gender difference, and women are happy not to be the number one dog everyone is looking to for guidance? This seems to be the exact same argument as "women only get 70c on the dollar compared to men." Well, right, because men pick challenging jobs with hard hours that kill you, and women pick easier jobs with easier hours that don't kill you. Being the President of the USA isn't a cakewalk, and those not driven by passion and a thirst for power won't end up there, which should be just fine, but for some reason... isn't.
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    Don't bitch about greytext. It will always result in greytext and is against the site guidelines. You're also incorrect about the reasons for pay gap, and also incorrect it's due to different jobs. The pay gap occurs at people doing the same job with the same skills. The reason has to do with things like taking leave from work (gaps in employment) and being less likely to negotiate salary as aggressively.
- gfodor 10y ago
  Well, if you are conditioning on "elected" you have to consider that democracies are a relatively uncommon thing in history. If you further condition on democracies that the voting body isn't made up of land owning men it becomes even less surprising. And of course if you remove the "elected" condition the whole phenomenon is quite unsurprising since power was often taken by force and men tend to use force to acquire power more than women.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  It's just a few generations ago, my grandmother's lifetime, that women started to have any say whatsoever in who is the elected leader of the country, much less getting elected themselves.

aaronbrethorst 10y ago

> I don't find it so bizarre Women have made up 50% of the population of Homo Sapiens for the entire age of our species. Literally for hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And it is literally in our lifetimes (give or take maybe 30 years) that the first woman is made the elected leader of a country? I wrote my reply with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, but when you get right down to it, it is phenomenally unlikely that we live at such a moment of change.

philovivero 10y ago
Le sigh. Here comes some greytext. Is it so insanely improbable that, on the whole, men strive toward power and women don't? That there is some slim evidence that there is a gender difference, and women are happy not to be the number one dog everyone is looking to for guidance? This seems to be the exact same argument as "women only get 70c on the dollar compared to men." Well, right, because men pick challenging jobs with hard hours that kill you, and women pick easier jobs with easier hours that don't kill you. Being the President of the USA isn't a cakewalk, and those not driven by passion and a thirst for power won't end up there, which should be just fine, but for some reason... isn't.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  Don't bitch about greytext. It will always result in greytext and is against the site guidelines. You're also incorrect about the reasons for pay gap, and also incorrect it's due to different jobs. The pay gap occurs at people doing the same job with the same skills. The reason has to do with things like taking leave from work (gaps in employment) and being less likely to negotiate salary as aggressively.
gfodor 10y ago
Well, if you are conditioning on "elected" you have to consider that democracies are a relatively uncommon thing in history. If you further condition on democracies that the voting body isn't made up of land owning men it becomes even less surprising. And of course if you remove the "elected" condition the whole phenomenon is quite unsurprising since power was often taken by force and men tend to use force to acquire power more than women.
PeterisP 10y ago
It's just a few generations ago, my grandmother's lifetime, that women started to have any say whatsoever in who is the elected leader of the country, much less getting elected themselves.